Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Dog Days?

About once a year Holly decides to see if she is the queen of the hill yet. She is 8 and Duck is 12 and 1/2. This year we had the Monday night fights. Everyone had been fed and watered and been outside and was back inside. The girls were in our bedroom and, with absolutely no outward provocation, Holly went after Duck.Duck does not take kindly to this. She never does. They are both strong dogs. They are both stubborn dogs. They are both dogs who are normally very well-behaved and who listen to me. They did not even hear me. They fought from our room through the hallway and into the kitchen. Shorty and I got them separated, one dog to each person. I took Duck and slung her back into the bedroom. I let go of her and my hand came away covered with blood. It was not hers. It was Holly's.
Duck, once again, reigns supreme. She is stiff and sore today and took her children's Motrin off a teaspoon just like a good little girl. Holly is still tense, pacing and circling and not quite in her own mind yet. None of the wounds needed stitches so we are counting ourselves lucky.

Until next year...

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

My house is a very fine house

Three years and a couple of months ago, we moved our house. Three years and a couple of months ago, my husband and I were both very busy with work and grandkids and work and sleeping and all that other crap. Our house became the house you did not want to live next to.

Over the past two weeks, with the help of our friend Chris and his boss Ted, miracles have been accomplished. The pipe fence in the back yard has been welded and plans are in place to fix the front, also. The toilet was hooked up to the septic. The skirting (we used fence panels and it looks just terrific) has been affixed to the house and plans are in place to repaint. Next up? The roof.

I cannot begin to tell you how pleased I am. I can now go home and flush the toilet after three years and a couple of months of using a chemical toilet. It was effective, it was sanitary, it was a semi-permanent solution to what was supposed to be a temporary situation.

Two of my four dogs were unfamiliar with the swirling, swooshing, fascinating rush of water into a toilet bowl. They still run to the bathroom to watch in awe as the bowl refills. I am also in awe.

Thanks, hon.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Sharing - Not

Normally, we buy one of these a year for the dogs (disclaimer: that is not one of my dogs). They like getting wet and tracking their muddy feet through my house.This year, we decided to get one of these instead. My thinking is that we can cover it at night, at least until the wind blows the lid away. Shorty picked it up today.
I woke up to the sound of Duck just having a wall-eyed fit. I looked out the window and laughed so hard I almost fell out of bed. Duck was in the water-filled turtle. Goose wanted to share the water-filled turtle. Now, Duck shares her house, her bed, her parents, her space and some of her toys. Duck has evidently decided that she will NOT share her turtle.

Goose was running around the perimeter of the turtle, trying to get in. Duck was pivoting, barking ferociously, using her big girl voice. She was spinning so hard, waves were forming. Goose finally just decided to do the demon-dog run around the yard.

Duck got tired, finally, and went to lay on the porch. Goose got to play in the pool, too, and all was right in the kingdom of the animals.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Bakery vs. Donut Shop

The bakery would have been about where the white station wagon is parked on the left.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away was a lovely bakery called Christiansen's Danish Bakery. Every Sunday that my brother and I could, we would stop at the bakery on our way home from Church and buy either a bear claw or a butterhorn.


The bakery where my uncle worked.

During this same period of time, my Uncle Jay was a baker for the Lady Baltimore Bakery in San Rafael. He would occasionally bestow upon us what seemed like tons of danish. I know now that they were undoubtedly out-of-date baked goods but who really cared? I didn't. Heck, I didn't even know.


NOT a bear claw

Recently, I was at our local donut shop. I saw bear claws on the menu and, flashback, was delighted. I ordered one and the clerk asked what kind of fruit filling I would like. Fruit filling? in a bear claw? I was not sure what they were selling but I was positive that it was NOT a bear claw. Thus began the search.

After several weeks and numerous internet searches and phone calls, I located this wonderful bakery only 57 miles from my house. Their online menu said they had bear claws. I emailed, asking what filling they used. The lovely Miss Phyllis answered me, not only with the correct almond paste answer, but from where she had travelled for her daughter's wedding! Now, that's dedication. I went, I bought, I ate. I returned, they were out, I mourned. I returned, they were out, I mourned. I ordered, I returned, I took home and now I eat one every day. I have not yet become tired of these lovely flaky, buttery, moist, decadent pastries. When I do, I will only have one a week instead of one a day.

THIS IS A BEAR CLAW!

My husband can also vouch for their breakfasts, their coconut pie, their pear bread pudding, etc. I had not realized how much I missed an honest-to-goodness bakery. Thanks, Village Bakery!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

One of the reasons I work

Five years ago, come September, my husband's bike broke. Due to work and finances and health and work and finances and vet bills and car bills and health and work and finances and just life in general, repairs to the bike were always put on the back burner.
Two weeks ago, my husband's bike went here. I wish they had a website so I could rave.
I love this sign.
Isn't she pretty all washed up? Doesn't hardly look 26 years old, does she?
I think he remembers how to back up.
Moose and I were discussing the fact that real riders wear long pants, even in the summer. I don't know what those other two are discussing, probably how fast them bikes'll go.
...and off he goes. Think I'll see him again this summer?

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Goose

This is the Goose. This is the stuffing from the dog bed, socks, magazines, books, and cd cases. Evidently, waging war against all of these things is very tiring.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

wedding pictures

Shorty and Sandy

Our matron of honor, Kim, Juls, Kris, Shorty and me.


As many of you know, Shorty and I have two anniversaries. Not long ago, I posted the pictures from our June wedding. Today, I found (OK, the puppy brought to me) the two Polaroids from our first. The quality of the pictures can be directly attributed to the fact that they are Polaroids, they are 25 years old, and they were removed from a puppy's mouth. Happy belated anniversary, hon!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

The fine art of compromise

This is what my husband wanted.This is what I wanted.
This is the best of both worlds (even has locking tool boxes!)
Now, I just have to keep working!!!!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Happy Fourth of July!


Declaration of Independence

[Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776]


The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy of the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levey war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.


 
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